POLAR TIMAS
*****FLX******
SUMMARY PLOTS
These are engineering survey plots
- Energy step values NOT indicated
- Data from the two TIMAS detector heads are shown separately for H+, O+, He+
and He++
- After December 8, 1998 NO VALID DATA were acquired from the second
sensor head.
- The values for Head B, after this date are not valid.
- After 12/8/96, the data for Head B are plotted for engineering evaluation purposes.
- The color bar encoding the flux intensity is different from that used in the
FLUX_A type plots, the standard browse product
Omnidirectional flux energy-time spectrograms or FLX plots present observed ion flux color encoded in units of
(cm-s-sr-keV/e)^-1 NOTE: some early versions of our production code incorrectly give the units as per keV not keV/e.
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Two panels with 28 energy steps each are presented for the 4 major masses: H+, O+, He+ and He++. The instrument
has two relatively independent detector halves. Data from each half can be processed differently. In particular
the limited telemetry bandwidth requires that for at least one detector half and for some masses data be
averaged from 28 narrow energy bands into 7 broader ones. All data from Head 'B', all He+ data, and some
He++ data from Head 'A' are so compressed.
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The center energies of each of the 28 fundamental channels cover the range from 25 eV/e to 32 keV/e. The lower
limit of energy acceptance is 16 eV/e above the spacecraft potential. The upper limit of energy acceptance is 33 keV/e.
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Below the He++ Head B color panel are three line plots and a panel labeled ICP. The top line, BCR is a line
plot of the log of the total background counting rate as a function of time. The E RANGE line indicates the
instrumental energy range, Full 0.015-33 keV/e (Red/top), Reduced 0.015-22 keV/e (Yellow/mid) or Low 0.015-0.22 keV/e
(Green/bottom). The ICP Number in the next panel indicates the operating mode. In the Example FLX Plot the mode
switched from 6 to 5 at ~ 07:00 and back to 6 at ~13:00.
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NOTE: In regions of high background counting rate, slight errors in our background correction routine can lead
to erroneously high or low fluxes being encoded on these plots.
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If the two lines indicated by BAD are filled by RED (not on the sample plot), The mass spectral data are OK,
but data in the PAD, LRDF, and MRDF data products are unuseable. Key parameters are derived from the LRDF data
products and so will be missing for such intervals. See This Page for more information about on board acquisition and
processing of data.
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Universal Time (UT), the satellite geocentric distance in R/re (R), The McIlwain L parameter (LVAL), the eccentric
dipole magnetic local time (EDMLT) and the geomagnetic latitude (MLAT) are given at the bottom of the plot.
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Data gaps appear because of spacecraft or instrumental anomolies which are noted in the Timas major event log
Prepared by WK (Bill) Peterson, May 2008